As an "IT Guy" this deeply interests me. I outsource some things, and many others I run in-house. Typically I'll outsource something when I don't have the time

As an "IT Guy" this deeply interests me. I outsource some things, and many others I run in-house. Typically I'll outsource something when I don't have the time to do it myself, and the cost to have someone else do it is reasonable (or, if I can take the time saved and work on something more important). The thing with outsourcing IT stuff is that when something goes wrong, it can go disastrously wrong. Think about it - you could find a freebsd guy and pay him a retainer to keep him 'on call' whenever you need him. But, what happens if you need him desperately right now, and his car won't start (or he gets hit by a bus, or misses your call)? To answer your question specifically, take a look at NASA. They have to build hardware that doesn't fail. They use old, tested technology, and they build multiple redundancies. Are you willing to pay double (at least) for old technology? Would you be happy with a 486, if you knew it was never going to crash? I suspect that this is why many of us pay the "Apple tax". This is a _hard_ problem to solve. That's why it's on PG's list